A Bower Quiet For Us
by Blue Buick R
Summary: Will can't sleep. He's sculpting. Jack helps him...sleep, not sculpt, that is.


Title: A Bower Quiet For Us  
  
Author: Blue Buick R  
  
Rating: J/W, PG  
  
Disclaimer: Not mine, except for in my mind.  
  
Notes: Some late night musing which I had to get down before I went insane. Feedback always welcome of course.  
  
A Bower Quiet For Us  
  
He was sure to fall into madness before he actually died, he was positive of that. All the indicators were present. He'd lost weight that was a given. The lack of appetite and the continuous, relentless, all consuming work he'd been forced to endure...day and night...made it a forgone conclusion. And really work was not the word for it. Obsessive need perhaps. Nightmarish drive to bend the metal, twist and hammer and meld until the monstrous, snaking, BENT creation took up almost half the forge.  
  
Master Brown was none to pleased, when he was sober enough to notice, and even went so far as to berate him for using HIS tools for such a useless and senseless task. Threatened him not to use them again for anything other than commissioned work. He paid him no heed. And if Master Brown mentioned it again he just might find himself with a bottle of two too many whiskeys forced down his gullet and an exploded liver to contend with. No one would suspect, the man was a certifiable drunkard after all. Then the tools would be Will's to do with as he pleased. Problem solved so to speak. And yes murderous delusions were probably another indication of his approaching madness. That and the paranoia.  
  
He was positive Commodore Norrington and the Governor suspected his faltering mind, and was doubly sure that since Port Royal had no madhouse to speak of, and even less mad people wandering about that Will was aware of, that the two had devised some fiendish system of spiriting all deranged citizens to the slave ships and sent them off the toil in America. Or perhaps they "took care of them" like he planned to take care of Master Brown. Whatever the case he was positive Commodore Norrington and the Governor suspected his faltering mind.  
  
It could be remedied rather succinctly of course if he could just get some sleep, for his crumbling reality had nothing to do with a substantiated mental illness per se. He was not suffering from an excess of black bile in his body, he was sure of that, since he'd attempted to balance his routine as well as he could...even going so far as to instigate intercourse with Elizabeth until the woman was a damp, formless form battered into the mattress beneath him. It hadn't helped him sleep any, and only resulted in Elizabeth casting him heated looks whenever they met, and her continued attempts at manoeuvring them into private meetings without her father's knowledge.  
  
He wasn't so sure it wasn't caused by corruption by demons or spirits, however, although on that score it was hard to be sure. It was a sticking point with him, for his problems resting, and his subsequent urge to sculp the metal "thing" at all hours of the day and night, began soon after the entire debacle with Jack and the cursed pirates three months ago. He'd been in contact with more than one depraved spectre on that escapade, not all of them incorporeal, or even foes for that matter. Perhaps he'd contracted something from those piteous whores in Tortuga who insisted on rubbing up against him like felines in heat. Come to think of it he wasn't sure they'd all been female at that, the redhead who'd slapped Jack...Scarlet?...looked quite a bit like some of the dandies wearing dresses he'd seen by some of the less reputable establishments down by the wharf.  
  
Whatever the source or the case he was here at the moment, long past midnight, Master Brown hopefully dead...drunk in his own bed, Elizabeth fought off for another day (no wonder most men did not bother with a woman's pleasure if this was the type of nuisance three orgasm could get you), the Commodore and the Governor no doubt skulking the streets for mad people (a good thing he was indoors), and he himself going on his he knew not how many days sleep deprived without losing or arm setting himself on fire (he was rather proud of that actually). Coiling his latest piece of iron around one of his "sculpture's" supports, he pulled and tangled the metal about until he felt the sudden, and only fleeting, relief that all was as it should be and he could finally sleep. The feeling of completeness and euphoria would only last until the need to add a new piece, solder another crafted nothing to the thing, came upon him. It surely meant to kill him.  
  
So caught up in his own murky thoughts he didn't hear the door to the forge open, nor sense the body come to stand next to him. It wasn't until the person's bulk settled right by his side, and into his peripheral vision (blurry though it was by this point), did he realize he was not alone. He startled and jumped back, brandishing the tongs in his hand, ready to strike. Norrington and Swann wouldn't take him alive!  
  
Before he had a chance to swing and embed his makeshift weapon in his opponent's skull a strong rough hand intercepted the motion by latching onto his wrist, easily halting his overwrought, and overtired body's attempt at motion.  
  
"This seems familiar," a voice lilted.  
  
Will blinked, blinked, blinked again and finally recognition dawned.  
  
"Jack?" It wasn't the exclamation of realization he'd been opting for.  
  
"Aye, it's me," Jack replied, judging it safe to let Will's wrist go. The tongs dropped to the floor with an anticlimactic thud.  
  
"What're you doing here?" Will asked, a little more confident this time.  
  
Jack shrugged. "A feeling. Sounds asinine, but I've learned not to ignore my gut...s'never led me astray yet."  
  
Will chose not to point out the entire Barbossa episode. Perhaps Jack had a feeling about his former first mate and never acted upon it, culminating in said lesson learned.  
  
"And what about you dear William? What are you doing here?"  
  
"I live here, Jack."  
  
The pirate tisked. "Not here in this space...here in this state." He blatantly perused Will from head to foot, noting the thinness, the hollow, glassy eyes, the dishevelled appearance...the ginormous, frightening wrench of metal behind him.  
  
Will shifted slightly. "I haven't been sleeping."  
  
"You don't say!" Jack quipped.  
  
Will attempted to summon the energy the scowl.  
  
"Nightmares?"  
  
He shook his head.  
  
Jack cleared his throat and cast an almost imperceptible glance down. "Frustration?"  
  
"God no!" Will exploded. He tried THAT and look where it got him.  
  
Jack raised an eyebrow but let it be.  
  
"Well I'm sorry Will but I'm all out of ideas...if it aint bad dreams and it aint pent up ummm pressure I'm..." he paused for a second and looked at the collection of metal standing behind Will.  
  
"How long's this been going on?"  
  
"Nigh on three months," Will mumbled.  
  
Jack's face split into a grin so wide Will was afraid the top half of his head would fall off. He swung his arm around Will's shoulders and steered him towards the door.  
  
They moved through the humid streets, feeling there way towards the water more than by sight, the pitch blackness only broken every now and again by weak lanterns. Several times Will attempted to ask questions, but was shushed immediately, sometimes with voice, others by a grimy finger pressed to his lips.  
  
Finally they made it to a little cove where Jack had come to shore in a small rowboat. Apparently the Pearl was somewhere out of site but close enough for her captain to row to landfall.  
  
Ushering Will into the small boat, Jack shoved off and climbed in after him, rowing them a little ways out, before tucking them behind a small jetty to sit calmly in the gently lapping waters. The boat bobbed slightly, the sound of tamed water meeting the rocks continuous in the background.  
  
Jack slid off his seat and plunked himself down at the bottom of the boat, which was luckily free of water, reaching out and dragging Will down as well, all in the same motion. Silently he manhandled Will until he was lying curled up on his side at the bottom of the boat, ear pressed to the planks, the sound of the water moving beneath them blocking out all thought. The curve of his back was pressed firmly to Jack's solid thigh, warmth seeping through both pants and shirt to diffuse through his skin to his entire body, settling right behind his ear to join the sound of the water.  
  
"What did you see, Jack," he whispered, feeling his eyes grown heavy.  
  
"It was the sea, Will, that much was obvious," Jack calmly replied.  
  
Will sighed. Obvious indeed. Before he drifted off to sleep he thought one day soon he'd have to tell Jack that the sculpture, whether he only just realized it or not, had been named The Sparrow all along.  
  
The End 


End file.
